Time has come when automatic scooters will take over from 100-110 cc commuter motorcycles to become India’s biggest selling two-wheeler segment. Till now the 100-110 cc commuter bike segment is driven by Hero MotorCorp’s Splendor-Passion models.
The motorcycles which comprise of nearly 50% overall sales in India, is now down to 36% while automatic scooters’ sale has climbed by over 34%. As a result, the gap between automatic scooters and the 100-110 cc motorcycle segment is now down to just 2% from 30% six years ago.
Currently, only 15-20% of scooter sales come from rural markets but it will soon increase. According to the two-wheeler marketers this trend will continue with improvement in rural road infrastructure and also due to the favorite choice among the women and elder people.
Interestingly, when the bike segment has lost some sales, automatic scooters have gained all incremental growth. In year 11-12 scooter sales were 2.5 million but in year 16-17 it has now jumped to 5.6 million units. While the motorcycles sales drop down from 6.6 million to 6.4 million units in the same fiscal years.
On this Aniruddha Haldar, VP of TVS Motors said, “The scooter segment has seen an almost 20% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years. The fundamental drivers of growth for scooters are still very active, so category share should continue to grow to reach 40% of the total two-wheeler industry in coming few years”.
Honda Activa is the largest selling two-wheeler on Indian roads today while TVS Jupiter stands second in the row.